


I Wanna Get Better

by lipsstainedbloodred



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Depression, M/M, PTSD, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 08:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17040395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lipsstainedbloodred/pseuds/lipsstainedbloodred
Summary: “Staying alive has always been so important I can’t imagine actively trying to die.”





	1. chapter 1

_“Staying alive has always been so important I can’t imagine actively trying to die.”_

The key word was actively. Neil, however, was no stranger to passively trying to die. There’s three kinds of people in the world: people that look both ways before crossing the street, people that jump out in front of cars, and people that simply walk out into the road without looking. Neil had always assumed he was the first kind of person. And maybe he was, for a while. But slowly over the last few months since Baltimore he’d drifted down, down, down to the low pit he currently resided in.

He could blame his depression on all kinds of things. Growing up in an abusive household, being on the run for half his life, being faced with the possibility of his own death more times than he cared to count, people that berate and belittle him on a daily basis. Those things fester, like a splinter that can’t be picked out, and Neil simply ignored them.

The thing is, with anything that festers under your skin too long, is you can’t ignore it forever. Eventually there is an infection, and sometimes that infection is deadly.

Neil considered himself to be in pretty good mental shape despite all the atrocities life had flung his way. He had assumed that because he could repress the hardest of his memories that he was fine. Neil Josten always thinks that he’s fine. But like any castle built on sand it has to come crumbling down eventually.

Neil just wished it hadn’t been in front of everyone.

-

_“Nathaniel.”  
_

A dead man’s name attached to his face.

_“Nathaniel.”  
_

Curious, the amount of emotion that can be stored into a single, three-syllable word.

_“Nathaniel.”  
_

He had known to expect it. That the press would use it against him in every interview. That people would use it in his day to day life. That opponents would spit it at him from across half court.

_“Nathaniel.”  
_

But knowing that something will affect you and anticipating the emotions that come with it are two completely different beasts.

_“Nathaniel.”  
_

Neil had frozen, mid-interview after a game, jaw slack and eyes distant and glassy. (”Can you tell us what happened to your mother Nathaniel?”) Andrew had to lock a hand around his wrist and clamp a hand on the back of his neck and drag Neil bodily out of the press room. Dan had answered the rest of the questions on her own, pointedly ignoring the reporter that had asked Neil such an awful question. Neil had a panic attack on the bus on the way back to Palmetto.

-

It felt a lot like imploding, the pressure in his chest that refused to give way even with Andrew by his side and the rest of his family just a few seats ahead. In his head he could smell his own burning flesh, hear Lola’s voice like a broken record in his skull, “what happened to your mother Nathaniel? What happened to Mary? What happened to your mother Nathaniel? Nathaniel. Nathaniel. Nathaniel.”

Neil hastily shoved Andrew’s hand away and pressed the left side of his face against the cool glass of the window. He didn’t want to be touched right now. He couldn’t, not when he felt so unhinged. Neil closed his eyes to avoid looking at Andrew’s face, and wished the world would open up and swallow him whole.

“You need to talk to Bee,” Andrew said. It sounded like an order and Neil hated it.

“I’m fine,” Neil hissed. “Just give me a minute.” Neil didn’t have to open his eyes to know Andrew was glaring at him.

“You are not  _fine_ ,” Andrew hissed back. “You have never been  _fine_.”

Neil’s lips pressed together tightly. He wanted to scream. Instead he turned it inside of himself and let the rage eat away at his insides, let it carve him raw and hollow and empty. He didn’t open his eyes again until the bus stopped, and even then he didn’t spare a glance for Andrew.

-

It’s difficult, being a person. 

Neil had always wondered if it hurt the stars to explode into a galaxy, if the creation of the universe had felt like too much blood shoved into too small of a container. If so, Neil wasn’t sure he wanted to become.

Nathaniel Wesninski was dead and buried in a basement in Baltimore, Maryland. He had ceased to be so Neil Josten could live, and Neil wondered, idly, if that had been the best decision he could have made.

Life is like touching a live wire with no ground. It’s like being chucked from an airplane at ten thousand feet with no parachute. It’s like a myriad of bruises all splotched black and blue and green and yellow and each one pulses with pain. Neil wondered when it became so painful just to be.

It hadn’t hurt when he was nothing. Not in this way. That had been a gunshot wound, the slash of a knife. It had been brief and fleeting bites of pain like walking on glass. This was a new ache, and a constant one. It was like drowning, like walking on hot coals, like having the skin stripped from his flesh. It was all of that at once. Constant pain, constant ache.

Neil didn’t know when he realized he’d been drifting, only that one day he’d been watching out for the cars on the road, and the next he’d been hoping one might just come along and hit him.

-

There were good days. Days when smiling didn’t feel like so much of a chore. Days when exy was fun and not just a means for survival. Days when he could be pressed to the ground by Andrew and be kissed until his lips were numb and his body was ten feet off the ground.

Then there were bad days. And they stretched for an eternity so long Neil couldn’t remember ever being happy. He couldn’t remember the reasons he’d ever stuck around this long.

_“Stay.”  
_

But that was hard. It shouldn’t be, Neil knew it shouldn’t be. It was something he had wanted with his entire being at one point. Wanted it so bad he’d let himself be torn apart to keep it.

_“Neil.”_

A name he’d given himself, picked randomly from a phone book somewhere on the Arizona state line. A patchwork of a person with a fabricated personality and a doubt that he’d live another six months.

_“Home.”  
_

The Foxhole Court. His family. Andrew. Andrew. Andrew.

He couldn’t stand being such a disappointment to them. Neil couldn’t stand the fact that he wasn’t as okay as he wanted to be, that he wasn’t as okay as they needed him to be. They deserved so much better, so much more than he could ever give them.

-

“Come to Reddin with me on Wednesday,” Andrew said after morning practice on one of Neil’s more frequent bad days. It sounded like a question, not an order.

“Why?” Neil asked, watching Andrew light up a cigarette each for the two of them. The smell usually made him feel safe, today it just made him nauseated.

“I’m worried about you.” Andrew said honestly and Neil snapped his head up to look at him.

“Andrew,” Neil started to say, but he trailed off listlessly.

“I’ve been where you are,” Andrew said. “I’ve been there, and I won’t let you go Neil. You made me a promise, I hope you intend to keep it.”

_Stay._

If Neil had to, he would, simply for Andrew’s sake. Because he couldn’t handle letting Andrew down again. He couldn’t handle breaking a promise to him. Neil grappled with himself for a moment and then sighed. “Okay,” He said. 

It was a start.


	2. chapter two

Neil’s mother had never been a very comforting presence in his life. She had been the woman that gave birth to him, the woman that protected him, that shielded him, but she’d never been kind or gentle in the way mother’s are supposed to be. Neil didn’t trust Betsy Dobson for two reasons: 1) she was a shrink, and 2) she tried to mother him in a way that made his skin crawl.

Her smile was always too syrupy sweet, her hands too gentle when they squeezed his shoulder. It was easier to avoid her. But that Wednesday morning Neil found himself in Betsy’s office despite his own reservations. Betsy, to her credit, only looked mildly surprised to see him there.

“Neil,” Betsy said gently, “I was expecting Aaron.”

“I told Neil to take his place today,” Andrew said, sitting himself in a chair in front of Bee’s desk.

Betsy smiled sweetly at Neil and he ducked his head to stare at his feet. He would much rather be on the court than in this office. He would much rather be dead than in this office, though he supposed that’s why he was here. Neil could feel Andrew’s heavy stare on him and he sighed, sitting himself in the chair next to Andrew and staring at the wall behind Betsy rather than directly at her.

She and Andrew idly chatted for a few minutes before Betsy fixed her gaze back on Neil. “Neil, I know it’s not easy for you to be here. Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?”

Neil shrugged. He’d rather cut his own tongue out with a pocket knife than have this conversation. But Andrew was watching him and Andrew, for whatever reason, cared enough about Neil to bring him here. Cared enough that he was sacrificing an hour of his time to be here with Neil. Neil’s heart felt heavy, and he was suddenly tired.

Finally he dropped his gaze down to his hands and said, “I guess I’m depressed, or whatever.”

“Can you tell me why you’re feeling that way?”

Neil’s face felt hot and he itched with the anger prickling up under his skin. “I don’t know. You’re the shrink, why don’t you tell me?” He spat.

Betsy hummed a little in response, like a mother allowing their child to throw a tantrum, and it just pissed Neil off even more. He started to get out of his chair, but Andrew grabbed his wrist to keep him there. Neil tugged at Andrew’s grip just to be difficult, but Andrew didn’t budge.

“He’s not eating,” Andrew said. “He hasn’t been sleeping well. The junkie doesn’t even act like he enjoys playing Exy anymore.” Neil settled back into his chair and avoided Betsy’s eyes on him. “He goes quiet for hours or he’ll snap like this. He stopped taking care of himself months ago.”

“I take care of myself.” Neil scowled.

“When was the last time you took a shower?” Andrew asked, eyebrow raised.

Neil thought about it, but he couldn’t remember. “Yesterday.” He said, but it sounded more like a question.

“Neil, Andrew is concerned about you. I think you and I should set up a private meeting and talk about this a little more.” Betsy said, opening her day planner.

A flash of panic coursed through Neil and he managed to rip his wrist out of Andrew’s grip and stood up quick enough it toppled his chair. He was out the door before Andrew could grab him again, and out of the building before Andrew even made it to the end of the hall. Neil’s feet hit the pavement and he ran without looking back.


	3. chapter three

Two weeks. It took two weeks before Neil trudged himself back to Reddin and made an appointment with Betsy. Two weeks where Andrew stewed with silent anger and frustration, and Kevin yelled at him for being distracted on the court. Two weeks where his thoughts were muddy and slow and being awake was the hardest chore he’d ever had to do.

Everyone was worried. Renee fretted silently, but Dan and Matt constantly asked if Neil was okay. (”I’m fine.”) Allison called bullshit and told him to get some real help. Nicky simpered over him in a way that made Neil lose his temper more than once. In the end, it was simply the fact that Neil knew he wasn’t well and wanted to get better for his family that had him finally walking back through the front doors of Reddin.

“It doesn’t work if you don’t want to get better,” Andrew told him one night when it was just the two of them in the living room. Andrew had carded a hand through Neil’s unwashed hair and Neil was struck with the sudden urge to cry. He didn’t, but he wanted to for the first time in years. He was so tired of the Foxes hovering over him, tired of the quiet way Andrew checked on him to make sure he was still around, tired of aching the way that he did.

Neil left Reddin with a prescription to be filled and a higher level of distaste for therapists. He almost didn’t take the prescription in to be filled. He would have rather torn the paper to pieces and let the wind carry it off than get the prescription filled. So he called Andrew.

-

Andrew picked Neil up from Reddin in the Maserati and took him down the road to the pharmacy. Neil couldn’t make himself look at Andrew, instead he focused on his hands on the steering wheel. Andrew’s eyes slid over to Neil before focusing back on the road. “What?” Andrew asked.

“What if they don’t work?” Neil said, quietly.

“Then you’ll try something else.” Andrew replied. 

Neil clenched his eyes shut. There were a lot of things he had survived. He had lived through childhood with his father, through being shot and stabbed, through being tortured by Riko and Lola and Nathan. He had managed to make it through all of it. He hated that his own mind was the thing to cripple him. “What if I’m broken?” Neil asked after a long moment of silence. He opened his eyes to see Andrew’s grip turn on the steering wheel turn his knuckles white.

“You’re not broken.” Andrew said. Matter of fact, like it was a truth that every child should know. The sky is blue, the grass is green, Neil Josten is not broken.

“But what if I am?” Neil knew his voice sounded as desperate as he felt and he grasped uselessly at his control.

Andrew’s jaw clenched and he pulled the Maserati over on the side of the road. He turned to face Neil but Neil still avoided his eyes. Instead he focused on the corner of Andrew’s mouth and the slight downturn of his lips. “Look at me.” Andrew said, bringing his hands up to cup Neil’s face. Neil closed his eyes, his breath coming in a little more ragged than before. “Neil, look at me.” Firm. No room for argument. 

Neil opened his eyes and finally looked Andrew in the eye. 

“You are not broken.” Andrew said, “You have been stabbed. You have been shot. You have been burned. I have seen you at your absolute lowest, but you are not broken.”

Neil’s jaw clenched and unclenched as he fought off a few stubborn tears. He knew his eyes were wet though, and he hated it. Andrew swiped a thumb under his eye.

“You’re going to get better, you’re too stubborn not to.” Andrew said and Neil turned his face into Andrew’s hand so he could kiss the skin of his palm.

“Can I kiss you?” Neil asked.

“If you need to.”

Neil did, he really did. He leaned forward and Andrew met him half way, pressing their lips together in a kiss that tasted like desperation. Neil pulled away first because he knew Andrew would kiss him as long as he needed him to and slumped back into his seat.

“Let’s get your prescription filled.” Andrew said, putting the Maserati back in drive, and let Neil hold his hand the rest of the way to the store.


	4. chapter four

Neil wondered when the magic pill would start to kick in. When he would suddenly be fine with everything that had happened to him. When he’d start looking both ways before crossing the street again.

(“What if they don’t work?” Neil said, quietly.

“Then you’ll try something else.” Andrew replied.)

The thing was, Neil didn’t want to try another pill. He wanted to be fine so his family would stop worrying over him. So Nicky would stop casting worried glances over his shoulder every few minutes. So Kevin would stop riding his ass at practice. So Matt would just smile at him again. Neil didn’t know what he’d do if he had to keep going to Betsy to be put on new medications. 

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. That had been his formal diagnosis. ‘One part crazy and another part loony,’ Neil thought bitterly, picking at the skin around his thumb nail. The PTSD was the cause of his nightmares, anxiety, temper flares, and depression. “I’m going to start you on Zoloft,” Betsy told him, “we’ll see how you do on that.”

We’ll see.

Those are damning words to someone who’s not sure how they’re going to make it through the day let alone the next week or month. And maybe there wasn’t enough of him left to fix anyway, maybe the part of him that had left him cracked after Baltimore had been the only piece left holding him together.

Andrew grabbed Neil’s hand and interupted his train of thought. Neil looked up at him in confusion. “You’re making yourself bleed.” Andrew said and Neil looked back down. Sure enough he’d picked at his thumb until the skin peeled back and welled red with blood.

“Oh.” Neil said. And then a thought stuck him, sudden as a lightening strike. Andrew had been enough to hold Neil together after Evermore, he’d been enough to hold him together after Baltimore. Andrew stuck by Neil’s side through all of his dark moods and temper tantrums and guided him back from the edge during panic attacks and after nightmares. 

Maybe Andrew could be enough to hold him together through this, just until he could hold himself together. 

“What?” Andrew asked.

Neil realized he’d been staring at Andrew for a few moments too long. He took a deep breath and let it back out. “I was thinking about what if my medication didn’t work.” He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts and Andrew waited him out in silence. “I don’t think I can do this on my own.”

“You’re an idiot.” Andrew said, and his hand was still holding Neil’s. The words held no venom and Andrew brought his face closer to Neil’s, just a few scant inches between them. “You don’t have to do this alone. None of us will let you anyway.” Andrew slid his other hand up and threaded his fingers in Neil’s hair, rubbing the skin where his head met the back of his neck. Then Andrew pulled Neil down, so he was pressed against Andrew’s shoulder. Neil’s free hand went immediately to Andrew’s sides, clutching Andrew’s tee-shirt desperately in his fingers. “If this one doesn’t work we’ll go back to Bee, but for now just try it. If anything it should at least help you sleep.”

“I feel like a fucking breeze could knock me off the edge right now,” Neil gritted out, pressing his nose against the side of Andrew’s throat. “Andrew, what if…what if I-”

“You won’t.” Andrew said firmly. “I told you to stay, Neil. You’re not going anywhere.”

Neil breathed in a shaky breath and closed his eyes and hoped Andrew was right.


End file.
